The darkness of the night of the soul and the night of the spirit in the mystical thought of Xuan Delacruz based on the book Ascend of Mount Carmel

Subject Areas : Christianity

Niloufar Davoudi ^{1 *} , bahman zahedi ²

1 -
2 - Instructor of the Department of Theology and Political Science

Received: 2024-11-05 Accepted : 2025-01-06 Published : 2025-05-27

Keywords: “Xuan Delacruz”, “Dark night of the Soul”, “Dark night of the Spirit”, “Ascend of mount Carmel”.,

Abstract :

Among most Christian mystics, the metaphor of "dark night" is used to describe the divine process. Xuan Delacruz, is one of the mystics who describes the different stages of reaching perfection in passing through the "dark night of the soul" and the "dark night of the Spirit”. From his viewpoint, the only way for a seeker to reach divine perfection is through faith, and since faith belongs to an invisible matter, he interprets it as "night”. Furthermore, this term express the difficulty of overcoming sensual and spiritual desires and the difficulties of refining them, and it is called as "night" because of the destination and purpose of this path, which is the Invisible God. This term is most visible in the works of Xuan Delacruz. The current research, which follows descriptive-analytical method and based on Xuan Delacruz thoughts, aims to find out the necessary condition of mystical reflection and arriving at the truths, which is the passage from temporal desires, passing through these nights, and reaching perfection. This is the result of self-denial and self-overcoming, and at the same time a hard jihad against oneself; Because you can never become a spiritual person relying on physical senses.

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